


Captain Proton and the Mines of Mercury

by greg-powells-mustache (GregPowellsMustache)



Series: Captain Proton and the Danger Patrol! [2]
Category: Captain Proton (Star Trek) - Fandom, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Assemble the Away Team!, Constance Is A Raging Lesbian: Part 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-10-03 19:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GregPowellsMustache/pseuds/greg-powells-mustache
Summary: Lieutenant Constance Goodheart and her crew make preparations to undertake the search for her partner, Professor Iris Amherst -- which will take them to nowhere else but Planet X. Captain Proton believes they're as ready as they can be, given the circumstances. But when a distress call on Mercury causes them to take a detour, he realizes that the team has no idea what challenges they're truly facing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Previously on "Captain Proton and the Danger Patrol":
> 
> Two years after defeating the nefarious Dr. Chaotica, Captain Proton finds himself facing a new challenge. Iris Amherst, a renowned scientist and the paramour of Miss Constance Goodheart, has gone missing -- replaced with a robot doppelganger seeming to be of the fifth dimension.
> 
> Proton is reunited with Buster Kincaid and Constance Goodheart to learn the secrets of the robot and find Professor Amherst. The team is assisted by Juniper, a being from the fifth dimension who has joined the Planetary Defense Force. They also enlist the help of Proton's oldest friend, the roboticist Dr. Altair -- whose alter ego, while under the influence of mysterious forces, was none other than Chaotica himself.
> 
> The five will embark on a journey to Planet X, but first, they must gather tools for their expedition...

The Planetary Defense Force Academy didn't hold too many positive memories for me -- with the notable exception of a stellar cartography class, and a few well-placed pranks that I _probably_ shouldn't talk about in too much detail. But the sight of it, as we approached it in the shuttle, still made me smile.

It was a more welcome sight than our final destination -- Planet X, of all places.

"Alright." Constance Goodheart pushed a couple of keys on her console, then smiled over at me. She'd fallen comfortably back into her role as field mathematician -- even after two years without practice. "They've just cleared us for landing. Take us in, Captain."

"Yes ma'am." I grinned at that -- the PDF had given her the lead on this one, and I couldn't have been happier about it. All I had to was fly the ship, and that's always been my favorite part of the job.

"Once we land, we won't have much time to gather what we need," Constance reminded us. "We'll have to split up. Buster and I will deliver the paperwork and take care of the administrative end of our mission. The rest of you, get all of the instrumentation we'll need onboard -- we should be out of here before the shuttles start leaving and things get busy."

"Hey, Doc, you think we can manage that?" I glanced over my shoulder -- as usual, Dr. Altair was busy reading. Going over his notes from earlier, it looked like. I'd seen this before; after about three days of this, he'd be able to recall it all from memory.

"Hmm?" Altair looked up sharply, and I gave him a moment to process the question. "_Right. _We shouldn't have any issues making that happen. The equipment we need is small, and it won't take long to move."

_::Good. The sooner we get going, the better.::_ The Stygian, Juniper, was nearly bristling with anticipation; xyr form, usually dimly luminescent, began to cast a pale blue glow around the bridge. _::I guess I should probably make myself presentable.::_

There was a short flash of light, and then Juniper had changed shape. Usually Stygians are these hooded, faceless shadow people. That's what they are, as far as we know -- living shadows, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

But now Juniper was _human..._ mostly. Xyr skin was a faint blue, still luminescent under the PDF uniform xe'd somehow manifested. But if nobody looked too closely, I don't think they would have noticed a difference. Even the teal in xyr hair wasn't too outlandish for the cadets I'd seen around campus, and _well_ within PDF regulations these days.

_::Alright,:: _ xe said finally. _::I'm ready. Let's get this over with.::_

I wondered what xyr hurry was -- there couldn't have been _that_ big of a reason for an eternal being from the fifth dimension to want to go to Planet X. Hell, _I_ wasn't even in a hurry for that, and it's where I'd spent the majority of my twenties.

"Doesn't everybody already know you're, y'know, an _alien?"_ Buster asked.

_::Sure, in theory. But I don't see a need to scare the cadets any more than I have to.::_

The shuttle landed smoothly, and I released the hatch. "You know where you're going, right, Constance?"

She rolled her eyes. _"Yes._ And even if I didn't, that's why I brought Buster."

I looked over at my best friend with a grin -- he was pretending to be put out with her, but we all knew better. Buster's sense of direction had saved us more than once, back in the day.

"I _knew_ there was a reason you guys brought me along," he chuckled.

"One of many."

I locked my raygun in its compartment, and felt... basically naked without it, to be honest. Buster did the same, and he looked just as uncomfortable about it. It was just the Academy, sure, but we'd spent a _long_ time needing these when we least expected it.

Constance got to keep hers, of course -- she was a ranking PDF officer now, after all. For a minute, I considered taking mine anyway, but I thought better of it. My rank wasn't much more than a courtesy at this point. And I wanted to keep on the Commandant's good side; I'd worked hard to get there, and she _really_ doesn't take kindly to bending the rules.

"Alright, Doc," I said finally. "This is your turf, so lead the way."

Juniper and I followed Altair through the corridors -- some I remembered, and others I didn't. Juniper seemed to know xyr way around, though.

"Hey, Juniper, does the whole 'extradimensional entity' thing come with a photographic memory or something?" I teased.

_::No. But I just finished my graduate work a couple of years ago; it hasn't been that long since I was here.::_

"Yeah? What did you study?"

_::Anthropology.::_

"That's an interesting choice for someone who considers xemself to be superior to we _lower lifeforms._" Altair snorted in amusement. "Passive observation just wasn't enough, I suppose."

_::If I really thought of humans as inferior, I would have stayed on Planet X and helped the others destroy it.::_

"Or, you could have just helped us defend it."

I understood Altair's resentment -- there hadn't been much we could do but leave, not by ourselves. There were too many of them, and those of us who made it out had gotten lucky.

Altair hadn't been one of them.

_::I tried. I just wasn't strong enough -- and by the time I recovered from my injuries, it was too late. The damage was done.:: _ Juniper smiled thinly; it was a strange sight, after getting used to xyr natural form. _::Joining the PDF was the best I could do. If they ever return, they'll have to get through me first.::_

He considered that, then nodded slowly in understanding. "You might just be the most decent Stygian I've ever met."

_::There are more of us, I promise.::_

"I'm sure."

_::So what equipment do we need?::_

"Three things -- a radiometer, a pocket computer, and my toolkit."

_::But you brought a toolkit with you...?::_

"Not _that_ one," I chuckled. "There are two of them. This one's the _everything_ kit -- right, Doc?"

"You know me so well." He paused for a moment to find the proper key on his keyring. "...Here we are."


	2. Chapter 2

I was _fully_ expecting Altair's office to be a mess. I'd known him for half of my life at this point, and he'd _always_ had trouble keeping a space tidy -- there was just too much going on in his head at any given time. (Not that I've ever been much better, of course.) So you can imagine my surprise when I saw that the place was _spotless._

Altair seemed surprised as well -- although for different reasons. "Spark must have been in here earlier... At least they remembered to lock the door when they left this time."

_::What makes you say that?::_ Juniper asked.

He pointed to the open notebook on the desk. "Well, that isn't mine, for one thing."

Sure enough, there were notes from an aeronautics lecture, scribbled out in pencil, in a purple notebook. That was Spark's, alright; I'd given them a whole stack of those notebooks for their last birthday.

Another dead giveaway: the candy bar wrappers in the wastebasket.

Altair was digging through the desk, a frown creasing his face. "It's not here. I could've sworn I put it in--"

The door opened then, and the most likely suspect walked in: Cadet Dale Jensen, third year -- better known to friends and family as Spark -- armed with a bottle of soda in their hand, and probably a couple of candy bars in the pocket of their jeans. They grinned when they saw Altair. "Hey, Dad. You're back early -- sorry about the mess. I lost track of time and had to run across the _entire_ building for my last class, and I _just_ had time to come back and clean up."

"It's alright." Altair smiled. "Did you make it?"

"Barely, but yeah. Guess I don't have as good of a grasp on time management as I thought."

"It's probably more difficult when you don't have me here to kick you out." He eyed their soda suspiciously. "I hope you realize you're _not_ having that at my desk."

"I know, I know..." Spark noticed me then, stopping in their tracks. Their eyes went from Altair, to me, to Juniper -- a flicker of recognition there -- and then back to me. "...Hi."

"Hey. You changed your hair." I smiled a bit -- it was the same pale purple as the sky under which they'd been born. "It's good to see you, kiddo."

"I did, yeah." They paused, seeming unsure of how to proceed. "What are you doing here, Cap? I thought you were off on Mars..."

"I was. The PDF asked me to look into something for them." I tried to look optimistic about it, but I'm not sure I succeeded. "I asked your dad to come with us. We're gonna need some help."

"That bad, huh?" Spark sighed, then looked to Altair. "So _that's_ why you're going on leave. How long are you going to be gone?"

"I don't know, sweetheart." There was something in his eyes that even I couldn't read. "It... might be a while."

"...Okay." There was knowledge in their quiet acceptance, and understanding -- the knowledge that they were being lied to, and the understanding that they weren't going to be told the reason. It was something they were used to by now; growing up around me and Altair, and the work we did, meant that there were a lot of secrets.

Too many of them.

Spark perked up then, grinning at Juniper. "Hey, Juni, if you're gonna be stuck with these two for a while, I have _very_ useful information."

Somehow, I wasn't surprised that they knew each other -- Spark's talent for making new friends is unparalleled. "So you've met before, huh?"

"Sure -- we had an ethics class together my first year."

_::Worst class ever,::_ Juniper added. _::I probably would've died of boredom if they hadn't been there.::_

"You also would've failed," Spark teased. "What was that thing you said? _Humans are weird, _ _and they don't make any sense__?"_

_::You've said that a fair amount of times yourself.::_

"Spark," Altair said abruptly, "you wouldn't happen to have borrowed my toolkit recently, would you?"

If Spark noticed the strain in his voice, they didn't show it. "Oh, sure. I think I left it in my room --"

"Your roommate must _love_ that."

"No, no -- my room at _home._" Spark grinned sheepishly. "Guess I won't have time to show you the progress I made on that project, though."

I suppressed a smile at that. Even being a twenty-minute walk away, Spark got a lot more homesick than they realized. "You carried it home by yourself? It's almost as big as you are."

"It is _not._" They puffed themself up to their full five feet and half an inch. "And yes, I did... Sort of."

Juniper radiated amusement. _::Sort of?::_

"I used a wagon," they admitted.

_::That's respectable.::_

Altair raised an eyebrow at that. "We don't _have_ a wagon."

"I... borrowed it."

"And just when I think I've seen it all from you." He sighed, no longer exactly surprised, or even disappointed, just accustomed to their particular brand of mischief. "Take someone with you -- I don't want you hurting yourself."

"Fine..."

_::I'll go,::_ Juniper volunteered. _::I don't mind the walk.::_

"But you _don't_ walk, Juni." Spark thought about that for a moment, then grinned. "Oh. You're... you're joking. That was a joke."

Xe smirked a bit. _::You're getting better at this.::_

They returned about an hour later -- Juniper with the toolkit, and Spark with a duffel bag -- and I knew immediately that we were in trouble.

_::Before anyone gets mad, it's not my fault -- they mostly figured it out on their own.::_

"I'm coming with you," Spark said plainly.

"No, you're not," I retorted. "It's too dangerous."

"You think I don't _know_ that?" they demanded.

"Spark, listen... It's changed a lot since you were last there, and we don't know what we're up against. You just haven't been trained for this..."

"What do you think I've been _doing_ for the last three years of my life, Proton? I could pass my field tests, if they'd let me take them -- and you know it."

They looked to Altair for help, but he just shook his head. "Why do you want to go so badly, Spark? There's nothing worth seeing on that planet."

"You've both been telling me that, but that's not how this works." Spark made rare eye contact with me then, their voice shaking. "There's no good reason for you to tell me no -- except that you just don't want me to go."

There were, in fact, a thousand reasons -- a thousand horrible truths I'd hoped they'd never have to face up to, think too hard about, or see for themself.

"You're right -- I _don't_, and you know why," I answered. "There's a lot I didn't tell you, kiddo."

"I'm not eleven anymore," they said quietly. "I deserve to know what happened. _All_ of it. If I'm gonna come to terms with this, _really_ come to terms with it, I've gotta see it for myself."

I looked over at Altair, who just shook his head in resignation.

"I guess we could use a mechanic," I said finally. "But Constance is _not_ gonna like this one bit."


	3. Chapter 3

Constance took the news better than I was expecting. A  _lot_ better, actually.

"But why does Spark even  _want_ to go?" she asked. "It's a miserable planet."

We were standing in her kitchen, and she was up to her elbows in soap. The last few weeks had been too busy, too painful, for her to even think about keeping the place up -- in fact, with how busy she'd been, I wasn't sure that she'd even been home in the past couple of days.

"Closure," I answered. "...I  _really_ wish you'd let me help, Constance."

"Not a chance. This isn't your problem to fix." She paused. "Did you ever tell them what really happened out there, when we were gone?"

"Some of it. The spider people, the giant women, the Martian catacombs... But no, I never told them about Dr. Chaotica." I smiled grimly. "Spark figured _that_ out on their own. Pretty quick, too -- I think it was within the first year or so."

"That poor kid. It isn't easy, finding out that someone you love isn't who you thought they were."

"...Yeah." I picked up a dish towel then. "I'm helping, and you can't stop me."

"You don't--"

"Hey, look, you've had one hell of a week. Just... let me do this, okay?"

"Alright." Constance took a deep breath. "I still can't believe it. How could I have not known that wasn't Iris? How could it be so perfectly like her..."

"I wish I had answers for you, Con. But we'll find something on Planet X to help us, even if it's just reactivating her duplicate."

She was silent for a while -- the only sound in the room was the steady squeak of a sponge on the dishes. It felt like the heaviest sound in the world; a reminder that life went on, even when everything was falling.

"She might not be out there," Constance said finally. "She could be dead, for all we know."

"You're right ," I admitted. "But I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because Chaotica was too thorough for it to have been an accident," I answered. "That thing broke down because it was supposed to. If he didn't want us to suspect anything, he would've just left it alone, and none of us would've known any different."

"Great. One last trick up his sleeve." She sighed. "What do you think we'll find there?"

"I'm not sure. But I know we'll have those lab notes, at the very least -- and I think Altair can help us make sense of them. I know  _I _ can't."

"I think you should probably give yourself more credit than that."

"Nah. He's always been the smartest person in the room." I laughed at the absolute absurdity of it. "We only beat the bastard because he got overconfident. Or maybe he just got tired of it, I don't know. Chaotica was always, well... y'know, the worst. But those last couple of years, he was..."

"A  _different_ sort of awful. The thing with the spider people was a pretty good indication." Constance drained the sink, drying off her hands. "You know what really gets me about this? Altair's nice enough; he's your  _friend;_ he doesn't even know what he did. I shouldn't be angry. But I'm managing to do  it anyway."

"I think you have the right to be angry," I said quietly. "More than any of us."

"Maybe. Doesn't stop me from hating myself for it, though. --Look, if Iris really is... gone, then I'll be okay. It's all part of the risks of the job -- I _know_ that..."

"Knowing it and living through it are two different things. And it's not really something you get used to." I thought about that for a long time, just letting it sit with me. "You'd be okay, eventually. But it won't come to that, because we're gonna find her."

She smiled sadly. "You really think that?"

"Yeah," I said -- and tried to believe it. "I do."


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks later, we were well into our journey to Planet X -- and to my surprise, no one was ready to kill each other yet.

Buster and Constance were back at their usual consoles -- Buster on navigation, and Constance on comms and calculations. We'd fallen back into our routine easily enough. Altair was monitoring the computer core we'd taken from the robot, running some tests on it using a power source and control board.

"We're coming up on Mercury," Buster announced. "Once we make this flyby, we're clear to wind up for the Jump."

"Perfect." Constance squinted at her console for a moment, then snapped into action before I even registered the activity she was seeing -- her earpiece in one hand, transcribing a signal with the other. "Distress call. Not a standard one, though."

"Civilians?" I guessed.

"Yeah, maybe, but... on Mercury?" She stopped as the signal looped back to the beginning, just listening. "Wait."

"What?"

"It's addressed specifically to us."

"So it's gotta be recent," Buster said. "They saw us coming."

"But _how?"_ Altair pointed out. "Something about this seems... suspicious."

"Yeah." I thought about it for a few moments. "Nobody's been down under the surface in a couple of decades; it's just the old mines. But we've gotta check anyway."

"I've got some maps in the database." Constance keyed something into her console, and a print clattered out. "They hit some caves in there, though, and not all of it's been explored."

"Do we have a rough idea of where the signal's coming from?" Altair asked.

"No." Constance sighed. "Radar doesn't pick anything up."

"So how are we going to find them?" I thought about it for a moment -- and then, I had a plan. "Buster, Constance, you're with me. And I think we're going to need a bit of help from our resident telepath."

I poked my head into the bunk, where Juniper and Spark were giggling about something. "Hey, could you two come up for a second?"

They looked at each other and shrugged, following me back to the bridge. Spark found themself a chair, and Juniper just kind of... floated.

Spark craned their neck to look at Constance's transcription. "So when do we head down?"

"Constance, Buster, Juniper, and I are going to check it out. --Juniper, you _can_ help us track the ship's crew, right?"

_::Once we're down there, sure. As soon as we get close, I'll be able to feel them.::_

"Always bring a telepath," Buster chuckled.

"So why did you need me up here?" Spark asked.

"Because I need a good pilot to look after my ship," I answered.

They cracked a smile at that. "I can do that. --But what if you guys get too deep into the mines?"

"We'll be fine," I assured them. "We've got enough oxygen reserves to take us two miles in and back."

"Sure, but do you think your pocket radios are going to have the same reach as a shuttle transmitter?"

"That signal _was_ pretty faint." Constance thought about that for a moment. "Hey, Doc, you wouldn't happen to have a radio booster in your bag of tricks, would you?"

"Unfortunately not." But Altair was smiling. "Give me half an hour."

...We were on our way in fifteen minutes.


	5. Chapter 5

"Uh, no offense, Captain, but are you sure this is gonna work?" Buster tapped the radio extender gingerly, like it might fall apart at any moment. "It seems a little... thrown-together."

"That's because it is," I assured him. "But that doesn't mean it won't work. Altair knows what he's doing."

That didn't help. "You seem pretty sure of yourself, considering how many times he's tried to kill us. -- And yeah, I know; he's not a raging melodramatic jerk anymore. But can you blame me for being a little nervous to trust the guy's work?"

"Well, he's still a bit melodramatic. Wouldn't quite be himself without it." I flipped on the pocket radio. "Proton to mission control -- you reading us up there?"

_"We're reading you,"_ came Altair's reply. _"That radio booster _ _won't stay on for very long__, so let's wait to use it until it's necessary."_

"Got it."

"I'm placing a beacon down here, so we can track our distance," Constance said. "Hopefully we won't have to go too deep into the mines."

"Right. We're heading in." I took a deep breath -- the mines were as dangerous as they were beautiful. "Alright, Juniper, lead the way."

Juniper was the only one of us without a full spacesuit. Xe didn't need much protection from the vacuum -- apparently it's pretty much considered a shirtsleeves environment in the fifth dimension. But xe wore a compression layer anyway -- and a helmet filled with enough air to carry sound from xyr radio. (The rest of us couldn't communicate telepathically, after all.) Even through the compression layer, xe gave off an eerie bluish-violet light on the tunnel walls.

_::This way. Someone's here, I can feel it.::_

I'll admit that following a blue glowing alien from another dimension through the caverns of Mercury is probably not one of my smartest ideas... At least not on paper. But xe was right -- there _was_ someone waiting for us.

Up ahead was a small shuttle, a standard Planetary Defense Force spacecraft. It wasn't meant at _all_ for long-range travel, but it was in pristine condition.

_It's a miracle it made it all the way here without falling apart -- let alone arriving like this._

"A PDF ship?" Buster had his eye on the hatch. "I don't remember any shuttles going missing recently."

"Me either," Constance put in. "But then again, I can't keep track of everything. You think whoever's in there..."

_::They're alive,::_ Juniper assured her. _::I can feel them in there, whoever they are.::_

"How many people?" I asked.

_::Just one.::_

"We can't just go in there," Buster pointed out. "The airlock might not be engaged, or it might be damaged. Who knows if the shuttle even has anything but emergency power, or how long it's been here?"

"You're right." I turned on my radio again. "Proton to mission control. We've found the shuttle. You still reading us okay?"

_"Well enough."_ It was Spark; it wouldn't have surprised me if they'd been sitting at the communications console this entire time.

"We need to find a way to contact the shuttle -- if they can transmit, they can probably get a message, if we can send one. Any ideas?"

_::Mass radio broadcast?::_ Juniper suggested.

No response.

"You hear that, Spark?" I asked.

_"Hear what?"_

"...Huh. Well, Juniper, I guess your telepathic transmissions are no match for the mines."

"That's fine." Juniper's voice sounded _hollow_, and maybe a little distorted -- it took me a moment to realize that I was hearing it through the radio, although I wasn't sure that was what was causing it to _buzz_ like that. "I just suggested a mass radio broadcast."

A few seconds later, Spark made one of their non-committal noises, something disappointed. _"No dice. But maybe that ship was told not to listen for mass broadcasts... Wait. Do you know how far into the mines you guys are?"_

Constance consulted the receiver on her pressure suit. "1.283 miles from where we started. What are you thinking?"

_"Well, some shuttles have sub-etheric radios, and those require direct coordinates, but there's this thing I did in my trig class... I might be able to use that to know where you are, and send a direct hail to the shuttle."_

"You'll need more than our distance from the entrance," Constance reminded them. "Can you figure out our distance from you directly?"

_"If radar was working, it'd be easy..."_

_"Maybe we should try a different approach,"_ Altair suggested. _"I did bring the radio__meter__, didn't I?"_

"Yeah, that big blocky thing I keep tripping over?" Buster quipped.

_"Well, assuming Mr. Kincaid hasn't damaged it too badly in his rush for a burrito every afternoon, we might be able to triangulate your coordinates from radio signal strength."_

"Thanks, Doc. Let me know what you get. We don't want to go into the shuttle until we know it's safe for the passenger."

_"Sure."_

"So here's what I don't get," Buster said. "Radar doesn't work, and Juniper can't talk to the ship telepathically, because of the rocks. But our radios are fine."

"Well, remember, these aren't standard PDF radios," I reminded him. "After our last few close calls, Constance and I made some modifications to them -- different frequency bands, longer-range. And right now, I'm glad that we did."

A few minutes later, Spark radioed back. _"We have the coordinates. But no response from the ship -- we can't even get a pingback. I don't think there's a sub-etheric radio there at all."_

"So... what now?" Juniper asked -- aloud again.

"Let's go in," Constance said. "We'll do a visual check from inside the airlock, make an assessment of whether there's enough power to repressurize."

But as we were preparing to open the hatch, it just... opened itself, silent in the vacuum -- and someone, in a PDF spacesuit, stepped out.

"Switch to PDF frequencies," I told the team.

"I can't believe you came," the stranger said softly. A woman -- and a moment later, I realized that she wasn't a stranger at all. "I only had the one distress beacon, and my shuttle's transmitter went out --"

Appropriately enough, it was Constance who spoke first -- and I didn't have to be a Stygian to feel the turbulent emotions in her voice. _"Iris."_


	6. Chapter 6

Professor Iris Amherst stood before us, clear as day. She and Constance took three steps toward each other, and then they were together again -- Constance was sniffling, the closest she ever _really_ got to crying in front of other people.

"What happened?" she whispered. "I was so worried about you..."

"It's a long story," Iris said. "But I guess we have a long way home."

"There was a robot. It... it looked like you, talked like you -- it knew _everything,_ Iris. I didn't even know you were gone until it deactivated..." Constance took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry I didn't know the difference."

"I know, Con. But it's not your fault, it wasn't... Well, it was different."

_::You saw it?::_ Juniper asked. _::Did you see who built it?::_

"I did. Someone like you, actually... A Stygian, right?"

Juniper nodded.

"Well, not just her -- she had this computer core, and it scanned my memories, my thoughts... That's why you couldn't tell the difference." Iris choked up at that. "There _was_ no difference."

"We know you were on Planet X," I said. "Is she still there? Do you know who else was there?"

I knew the answer to that second question, of course. There was only one person it could be. But I needed to hear it. We all did.

"I don't know where she is. I don't even know how long I was _there..._ But she said she needed someone to build the robot, so she had Dr. Chaotica do it -- but he was _different_ from how you've described him, I don't know..."

"Look, all of this can wait. I'm just glad you're okay," Constance said. "You can tell us everything on the way back."

I switched to communications with the ship. "Good news, Doc -- we found Professor Amherst."

_"What?"_

"We found Professor Amherst -- she's fine, and it sounds like she has a lot of information that'll be helpful..."

_"Your signal's breaking up. Can't hear half of what you're saying -- turn on the extender, would you?"_

"Weird. I can hear _you_ just fine." But I turned on the extender anyway. "Better?"

And then, it was all gone -- the shuttle, Iris, _everything._ It was just us, alone in the mines.

No one said anything for about two minutes; we just stared at each other in silence.

"What just..." Buster couldn't even finish the thought.

"I don't know." I turned to Constance, standing alone now, and patted her shoulder awkwardly -- there was nothing I could really do to comfort her. "We can figure out what happened later. Let's just get out of here."

_::Wait. There's still someone else here.::_

"No, there _isn't._" Constance's voice was almost inaudible -- but I knew her well enough to know how angry she was. "Let's go."

A blue-violet glow approached us then, and I felt a familiar chill spread up my spine. Another Stygian, this one less humanoid than Juniper, the same ghostly form in which they first appeared on Planet X.

_::No, your friend is right.::_ There was cold amusement in that thought as it grated across my consciousness. _::Hello, Juniper. _ _You changed your form; I'm not sure it suits you._ _::_

Juniper went flat then -- a flash of anger, bitterness. _::What do you want, Nari?::_

_::I don't mean you any harm. I hoped to send you back to your planet -- but as little as he remembers, your friend in the ship is still a clever opponent.::_

"So the illusion was your work." I smiled wryly. "I've met quite a few Stygians, you know, but I've never met one who can do _that._"

_::But you have. You may not remember me, but I certainly remember you, Captain Proton.::_ Nari was studying me; I could feel it. _::I gave you the answers you were looking for. You have no reason to go to Planet X -- the human you seek isn't there anyway.::_

"Where is she?" Constance demanded.

_::She's unharmed, and will be returned to you when I have what I require from her.::_

_::Leave us alone, Nari,::_ Juniper said then. _::We'll go where we please, _ _and you can't stop us._ _::_

_::We both know that isn't true, don't we? But fine, go ahead. You won't like what you find there; don't say I didn't warn you.::_

Nari was gone then, instantly. I'd never seen a Stygian do that before, either.

"Who was that?" Buster asked.

_::She's not anyone who matters.::_

"She knows where Iris is," Constance said tonelessly. "I think that matters."

"Okay, look." I cut in before anyone could start a fight. "She doesn't want us to keep going -- and in my experience, that's a pretty good indication that we're heading in the right direction."

"Yeah, you're... you're right."

I radioed up to the ship then, on an isolated line. "Doc, we've got a problem. It wasn't Iris -- it was a Stygian. Your extender broke her illusion. I don't know how, but it did."

_"It could be the radio filter -- I thought it would just clean up the signal, but it must have filtered out those electromagnetic frequencies... Lucky for us."_

"If we're really dealing with them again, we're gonna need a lot more than luck."

_"Agreed."_

I raised an eyebrow at that. Maybe he remembered more than he was telling us -- when they'd first arrived, we hadn't known that the Stygians communicated via electromagnetic waves. But I couldn't say that I blamed him for not wanting to talk about it. Anything he was starting to remember was _absolutely_ less than pleasant.

When we got back to the ship, I took Constance back to her bunk. "You okay?"

"No." She shook her head. "All of that was for _nothing._"

"Well... We know that she's alive, we know who took her, and we know we're on the right track. That's not nothing. And maybe we'll find out _why_, when we get there..."

"We were going there anyway, and if she knew who you were... She must have known that she wasn't going to deter us with that. It was pointless and cruel."

"That's a Stygian for you -- most of them, anyway. She was just trying to get under your skin, scare us off."

"Well, it _worked._" Constance looked away from me then, struggling to maintain her composure. "I don't know if I can do this."

"You can," I said softly. "Just don't try to do it by yourself, okay? That's why the rest of us are here."


	7. Chapter 7

**PERSONAL LOG, DAY 11.**

  
  


**[BEGIN RECORDING]**

Y'know, I really should have seen this one coming.

It was too easy. What, Iris just _showed up_, right as we were passing by? Gave us a lot of answers to the questions we were asking? It was suspicious right from the beginning. And it's not like I've ever made the trip to Planet X without _something_ going wrong. When I was living there, I always had to build a couple of extra days into the plan when I went on a trip.

Well, at least nothing's tried to kill us yet.

[CENSORED]

I can't help Constance with this, and I hate myself for it. Before this happened, I could _try_ \-- I mean, I've never had anyone _replaced with a robot,_ but I've lost people, y'know? But _now?_ I just... don't know what to do.

I told her that we were gonna find answers on Planet X. I have no idea if that's true; it probably isn't. We're gonna find _something_ in those notebooks, sure, but it's not gonna tell us where Iris is, or whether she's okay. I don't even know whether we'll be able to make heads or tails of it.

I guess it depends on whether the smartest guy in the room can follow the work of... the smartest guy in the room. Something tells me that Altair's gonna find a lot more questions than answers.

I've got eleven days to figure out how to deal with that, so that's gonna be fun.

Buster asked me about that, a while back. _"You're gonna have to tell him at some point,"_ he kept saying. And yeah, I knew he was right. But I figured if I just kept some distance between us, it wouldn't enter into the equation.

That sure worked out for me. Nice going, Proton.

But on the bright side, we'll have _three whole weeks_ to talk about it on the way back!

In all seriousness, I don't know what we'll find there -- and all of our leads are from a Stygian, which means it's probably all untrue. Who _knows_ whether that computer core has all of Iris' memories in it? I guess it's not out of the question; Constance didn’t know anything was up, and I don't know a damn thing about fifth-dimension tech, after all.

But I _do_ know robotics, and the robot back on Earth is the most advanced one that I've ever seen. Back when Altair and I were working on that stuff, we weren't really trying to make them particularly... human. Disaster relief, search and rescue, city defense, that kind of thing. They were close, in some ways; decision-making and pattern recognition, mostly -- and they made pretty decent short-term babysitters. Anything clever enough to entertain an unpredictable toddler is definitely capable of stopping a few giant lizards from wandering into town.

But Chaotica wasn't trying for humanoid robots. All of the robots that tried to kill us were _designed_ well enough, obviously. But that was all they did. They weren't adaptive, they didn't have any flexibility about them...

I don't know how he managed to create something so _complex,_ so absolutely human. It just... wasn't like him. Not after what the Stygians did to him.

That was how I knew he’d changed.

The one we met today, she knew we'd be there. We _had_ to fly by Mercury -- we have to stay within radio distance of the PDF for as long as possible. I don't know how the Stygians know about that -- but it can't be a coincidence.

Now I get to tell the PDF what happened. Technically, that's supposed to be Constance -- but she's obviously pretty out of it right now, and the higher-ups all know that we don't exactly adhere to the typical command structure around here. But I have no idea what to tell them. I didn't see this coming, and I should've. A couple of years ago, I _absolutely_ would have seen it, a mile away.

They're gonna say I've lost my edge -- and maybe they're right.

But hey, if they don't like how I'm doing my job, they can find somebody else to do it. They're the ones who called me in, after all. And I'm sure that if they _really_ need it, the PDF can find another officer's kid to break repeatedly until they've got pretty good instincts about this stuff. Who knows, maybe they'll grab a few of them and start a team.

[SIGH]

And just when Dr. Neumann was saying that we were making progress here. I was even starting to believe her.

So, fine, in the interest of confronting the elephant in the room -- and not getting yelled at by my therapist when I get home -- I'll talk about it.

...Eventually.

**[END RECORDING]**


End file.
